The Board of Health has called a meeting for Wednesday, Sept. 9, to discuss a heated exchange involving member Tom McMahon at its Aug. 24 meeting.
McMahon repeatedly interrupted and raised his voice at resident Ryan Wilson, who was addressing the board during public comment.
Wilson, who has two children at Marblehead High School and works in market research, challenged both the board’s interpretation of youth drinking data and its focus on alcohol. The most recent Marblehead High School Youth Risk Behavior Survey shows underage drinking is down, 42% to 32%.
Wilson corrected a statistic McMahon had cited from the Marblehead High School Youth Risk Behavior Survey. McMahon had said 92% of students reported that an adult they lived with had used substances in front of them in a concerning way.
Wilson said the figure was the opposite: 91.8% answered no and 8.2% answered yes.
“I come here as a parent. I also come here as a professional market researcher,” Wilson said. “We need more data, and we need the best data possible.”
McMahon challenged Wilson, repeatedly asking him, “Do you think underage drinking is a problem in town or not?”
Wilson replied, “I’m going to tell you right now: It’s less of a problem than it was last year, and that’s very clear. You can’t argue that data.”
Wilson said that McMahon had called him a “f—ing moron” in a text. A copy of the text, which was sent before the meeting, was shared with the Current after the meeting.
In a social media post later that night, McMahon wrote, “I lost my cool at the meeting tonight.”
The post continued: “I don’t agree with basically anything that parent said at my meeting and he and I won’t be sitting down for coffee to have a conversation any time soon. But I need to be better for everyone else in town that supports me, and I’ll do my best to do that.”
Board of Health Chair Dr. Tom Massaro said several board members have been urged to “censure” McMahon. Instead, Massaro is calling Wednesday’s meeting to let the community know the board is “taking the incident seriously.”
The meeting will be on the 2nd floor of Abbot Hall Wednesday at 7 p.m. The Select Board will meet at the same time on the first floor.
“My goal is to make people aware that we are mindful of the concern that episode has generated,” Massaro said. “We do not want that exchange to make people afraid to speak to the board and share differing opinions.”
Massaro said the meeting will not be a “blame game” but rather a discussion about what the board can do better.
The Current reached out to McMahon for comment, but did not immediately hear back.
